UNION CARBIDE / ENICHEM
Follow-up: Polyethylene joint venture
In Plasteurope.com No 16, 1994, we have reported that Union Carbide Corp (USA) and Enichem SpA (Italy) are planning a 50/50 joint venture to produce and market polyethylene in Europe. Further details by our friends at "Plastics Focus" newsletter (Amherst, MA, USA):
"The joint venture with Italy's Enichem will give Union Carbide the critical mass and the global supply position for its polyethylene business that it has been seeking for several years. After signing a letter of intent, the two firms are proceeding with negotiations toward the formation of a 50:50 JV that they anticipate will start up in the first quarter of 1995, following approval by the European Community. The new company, as yet unnamed, will own Enichem's polyethylene operations in Italy (Brindisi, Gela, Priolo, Ragusa, and Ferrara), France (Dunkirk), and Germany (Oberhausen), with a combined capacity of close to 1.3m t/y. Only Borealis, the Scandinavian polyolefins producer formed earlier this year by the merger of Finland's Neste and Norway's Statoil, produces PE on that scale in Europe. Also to become part of the JV are olefins crackers in Brindisi and Dunkirk; additional ethylene will be sourced from other Enichem crackers under related supply agreements.
The first project to be undertaken by the Carbide/Enichem venture will be to build a very large Unipol PE plant at Enichem's Brindisi site. The 400,000 t/y facility is tentatively scheduled for completion toward the end of 1996. Much of the resin from the Unipol plant will be used to replace material from existing capacity at Brindisi and other Enichem locations; much of that capacity is old and outdated. The partners are also planning to build other Unipol plants at strategic sites throughout Europe. We see the hookup with Enichem as a coup for Carbide and for Unipol PE, and a blow to Montedison and its new Spherilene PE process.
With the Enichem JV, plus the Elf Atochem JV in wire and cable resins announced in June, and its JV in Kuwait, Carbide has staked out a global claim in PE, and locked up the dominant position in the industry for the Unipol PE process. Both the Kuwaiti and Enichem ventures have access to the new Unipol II technology, which extends the realm of LLDPE production to include drop-in replacements for many high-pressure LDPE resins."
"The joint venture with Italy's Enichem will give Union Carbide the critical mass and the global supply position for its polyethylene business that it has been seeking for several years. After signing a letter of intent, the two firms are proceeding with negotiations toward the formation of a 50:50 JV that they anticipate will start up in the first quarter of 1995, following approval by the European Community. The new company, as yet unnamed, will own Enichem's polyethylene operations in Italy (Brindisi, Gela, Priolo, Ragusa, and Ferrara), France (Dunkirk), and Germany (Oberhausen), with a combined capacity of close to 1.3m t/y. Only Borealis, the Scandinavian polyolefins producer formed earlier this year by the merger of Finland's Neste and Norway's Statoil, produces PE on that scale in Europe. Also to become part of the JV are olefins crackers in Brindisi and Dunkirk; additional ethylene will be sourced from other Enichem crackers under related supply agreements.
The first project to be undertaken by the Carbide/Enichem venture will be to build a very large Unipol PE plant at Enichem's Brindisi site. The 400,000 t/y facility is tentatively scheduled for completion toward the end of 1996. Much of the resin from the Unipol plant will be used to replace material from existing capacity at Brindisi and other Enichem locations; much of that capacity is old and outdated. The partners are also planning to build other Unipol plants at strategic sites throughout Europe. We see the hookup with Enichem as a coup for Carbide and for Unipol PE, and a blow to Montedison and its new Spherilene PE process.
With the Enichem JV, plus the Elf Atochem JV in wire and cable resins announced in June, and its JV in Kuwait, Carbide has staked out a global claim in PE, and locked up the dominant position in the industry for the Unipol PE process. Both the Kuwaiti and Enichem ventures have access to the new Unipol II technology, which extends the realm of LLDPE production to include drop-in replacements for many high-pressure LDPE resins."
15.09.1994 Plasteurope.com [21198]
Published on 15.09.1994